could not be conveniently introduced in chronological order. All the
books printed previously to 1465 are in the Gothic, or black letter,
which still remained the favorite in Germany and the Low Countries long
after the Italians introduced their beautiful Roman letter. The first
books in which any Greek type occurs are Cicero's _Offices_, printed
by Faust and Schoeffer in 1465, directly after the resumption of their
establishment; and _Lactantius_, printed the same year by Sweynheim and
Pannartz, in the monastery of Soubiaco at Rome. The first book printed
entirely in Greek was Constantine Lascar's _Greek Grammar_, Milan, 1476.

One of the earliest of the Italian books, and, to use the words of
Dr. Dibdin, perhaps the most notorious volume in existence, was the
celebrated Boccaccio, printed at Venice by Valdarfer in 1471. This book
deserves particular mention, because of an extraordinary contest which
once took place for its possession between two wealthy bibliomaniacs. It
was a small black-letter folio, in faded yellow morocco, and supposed
to be unique. Its history is this: In the early part of the eighteenth
century it had come accidentally into the possession of a London
bookseller, who successively offered it to Harley, Earl of Oxford, and
to Lord Sunderland; then the two principal collectors, for one hundred
guineas; but both were staggered at the price and higgled about the
purchase. An ancestor of the late Duke of Roxburghe, whom nobody dreamed
of as a collector, hearing of the book, secured it, and then invited the
two noblemen to dinner, with the view of parading his trophy. In due
course he led the conversation to the book, and, after letting them
expatiate on its rarity, told them he thought he had a copy in his
bookcase, which they emphatically declared to be impossible, and
challenged him to produce it. On producing the book, about the purchase
of which they had only been temporizing, they were not a little
chagrined.